Approximately 8.82 million beneficiaries enrolled in a health plan during the seven week 2018 ACA open enrollment period, which experienced surges in health plan purchasing activity during the...
GOP lawmakers in both the House and Senate passed a federal tax bill that includes a repeal of the ACA’s individual mandate to purchase health insurance. The bill now heads back to the...
An October executive order that expands the availability of short-term association health plans (AHPs) could present significant challenges for state governments and consumers, asserted AHIP, BCBS, and...
A number of state governments have submitted Medicaid 1115 waivers to CMS in order to expand Medicaid eligibility requirements, stabilize their in-state premium rates, manage public health issues, and...
At a Senate HELP Committee hearing this month, policy experts and advocacy groups suggested several strategies that could lower prescription drug costs, including removing Medicare Part D cost-sharing,...
A repeal of the individual mandate, as included in the current GOP Senate tax reform plan, would result in financial losses for payers that could not be offset by cost-sharing reduction payments, the...
The US’s current prescription drug policies require updates that cut prescription drug spending while increasing competition in the market, a new report from the National Academies of Sciences,...
The US Senate voted 51-49 to reform national tax policy and simultaneously repeal the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, major news outlets reported at the end of last week.
GOP senators...
Integrating medical benefits with pharmacy benefits can help healthcare payers and employer sponsors lower spending, improve member engagement, raise satisfaction, increase care coordination, and...
As a potential repeal of the ACA’s individual mandate faces the US Senate, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Tax Committee (JTC) found that a repeal would cut the number of insured...
Former National Coordinator for Health IT and Assistant HHS Secretary Karen DeSalvo, will join Humana’s board of directors, the payer announced in a press release.
Humana believes that the...
The state of Maine has become the first state to expand Medicaid through a ballot vote that overrides Governor Paul R. LePage’s (ME-R) previous decisions to block the expansion, according to...
Analysts expect up to a 13 percent drop in open enrollment on the ACA marketplace exchange in 2018, according to Standard and Poor’s Global (S&P Global).
Only 10.1 million to 11.4...
Had cost-sharing reductions (CSRs) under the Affordable Care Act remained in place payers would only expect modest premium increases with some continued profitability, a USC Brookings...
The Bipartisan Health Care Stabilization Act of 2017, also known as the Alexander-Murray compromise bill, would save the federal government $3.8 billion without drastically changing the number of...
A new bipartisan bill proposed by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA) is an attempt to stabilize and protect provisions of the ACA while allowing for greater state flexibility to...
Iowa Insurance Commissioner Doug Ommen has withdrawn his state’s application for a 1332 waiver to stabilize its insurance markets in 2018.
The proposed stopgap measure included a...
Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TX) and Patty Murray (D-WH) have floated a bipartisan deal to reinstate the ACA’s cost-sharing reductions (CSRs) and boost individual enrollment outreach in...
Several states have decided to either increase or maintain expected premium increases on individual and small group plans following the President’s decision to end the cost-sharing reductions...
Several payer organizations have expressed deep concerns after President Trump announced plans to end the cost-sharing reduction (CSR) subsidies for ACA individual plans.
Organizations including AHIP,...
